


I'm a Satellite (I'm Out of Control)

by polytropic



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: (kind of...past 'imprints'?), 5 Times, Bodyswap, Colonialism, Explicit Consent, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderqueer Character, Menstruation, Multi, Not your traditional Rule 63 to say the least, Other, Past Lives, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Trans Character, Troubles (Haven), making fun of bad scifi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polytropic/pseuds/polytropic
Summary: 5 Times Audrey, Duke and Nathan had their genders messed with, and 1 time they messed with everyone else's.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, I wrote a short little Tumblr essay about my perspective on the "genderswap" trope. Years later, I've finally put my money where my mouth is and written my take--actually 6 of my takes--on the trope.
> 
> I've done my best to make sure that this story doesn't remotely prescribe to gender essentialism in any form, and that where it describes people's bodies and identities, it does so with respect. However, it's really possible that it may still be triggering for folks' gender feels or dysphoria, so please tread with caution.
> 
> The story is fully written! I'll be posting a chapter a day for the next week or so. 
> 
> The title does, of course, come from Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", a song whose powerful Chaotic Bi energy seemed particularly appropriate for this fic.

Shelley Fordham gets her third-ever period one sunny June day in beautiful Haven, Maine, and for the next seven days anyone who travels within about thirty feet from her gets it too.

"Why would this trigger on the third one? Shouldn't it be her first?" Nathan asks, grumpy, as they're at the station trying to figure out how to spin this. Dwight's thinking 'estrogen in the water', or at least is thinking it from the toilet where he's dealing with the super-fun constipation.

"First one's usually pretty tame, actually," Audrey informs him with the serenity of someone immune to the Troubles and on the pill. "It takes your body a while to warm up and really make your life miserable."

"Hm." Nathan grunts noncommittally, then frowns. "Are you sure I'm not bleeding? I think I'm bleeding."

"You don't have anywhere to bleed from."

"Right, right." He squirms in his seat. Audrey, with commendable restraint, doesn't laugh at him.

"It's normal paranoia, Nathan. She'll be over it in a few years, but right now it feels like accidentally staining her underwear is the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen, and I guess you got that fear since you can't feel any of the other symptoms. You wear briefs, right? Want to wear a pad? It'll help it stop bothering you."

"Why do you know...you know what, never mind. No. We're done talking about this."

Audrey is disappointed but not surprised.

The period Trouble, while disconcerting for folks who have never had one before, isn't a big deal as far as Haven is concerned. Business continues as normal, including a call to the Gull for a drunk and disorderly.

It's after they've loaded the guy into the cruiser that Audrey realizes she hasn't seen Duke.

"Oh, he's out today. Not feeling well," the waitress tells her when she inquires, and she sees a grin of realization cross Nathan's face. After that they of course have to go bother the poor guy on his boat, because if Nathan is going to be checking his ass for stains in every reflective surface they pass then he wants to see Duke suffer too.

Duke isn't above deck. Audrey leaves Nathan up there poking around violating Fourth Amendment rights, and heads below.

The minute she sees Duke curled up on the couch it's clear that this isn't as funny as hoped. He has one hand resting on his abdomen very, very gingerly. The other is wiping at his face.

"Cramps and weepiness? That's a rough draw."

"Hello to you too, yes please invade my home, nothing in the fact that I'm here with all the lights off might possibly suggest I want privacy."

"Nathan's here too."

"Perfect." He twitches like he wants to sit up, then makes a very thin, very soft noise of agony.

"Oh don't, come on, what's he going to find that he hasn't half a dozen times this month?"

"...point."

Carefully, Audrey sits herself on the edge of the couch. After a moment, she lifts Duke's head up so she can get her lap under it. She's never been a mother or even _had_ a mother, but she feels vaguely that this is what the more-experienced person is supposed to do in this situation.

"This okay?"

"Yeah."

"Painkillers?"

"Didn't work. This a Trouble?"

"Yep."

" _Yep_."

They sit in silence for a minute. Slowly Audrey realizes that Duke looks odd to her because he is wearing at least three cardigans at once. That's adorable. Also, his legs where they emerge from the sweaters are bare.

"....are you wearing pants?"

"Pants...did not feel good."

"Oh wow you are not having a good day."

"No, no I am not."

With characteristically stellar timing, Nathan emerges from above decks.

"Oh, _he_ gets sympathy?" He gestures at her petting Duke's hair with an air of great injustice. Audrey glares at him.

"Nathan I'm going to let you in on an important chapter of the Girl Code: when someone has cramps, you are nice to them. Even if you hate them, or find them annoying, or have weird unexplained history from middle school that you should honestly probably just get over by now." He opens his mouth, outraged. She glares harder. "Nope, save it, not today. You can go find a hot water bottle for Duke, or you can go back to the station and I'll catch up."

Nathan stares at her a second to see if she's joking. She raises her eyebrows.

"Unbelievable," he mutters, and leaves. But not, she notices, via the exit.

"You did not just send Nathan Wournos to get me a hot water bottle." Duke can't actually look after him without moving his torso, which is clearly the last thing he wants to do right now, so he just stares at the ceiling in disbelief instead.

"Oh, I did. The only nice thing about having a period is that it's a guarantee of sympathy from anyone who understands. We're going to sit here, and reassure Nathan that he's not bleeding on your couch, and maybe put on a movie, and eat whatever sounds like it will least cause you agony, and then you, unlike poor Shelley, will never have to go through this again, okay? ...are you crying?"

"Fuck _absolutely everything about this_."

"Aw."


	2. Chapter 2

Audrey is not always successful at talking Troubled people around the first time.

"You recognize that that's patently stupid, right?"

Max Fabrey is not buying the 'when you invent a new character for your novel you turn a real person into that character' story. To be fair, Audrey does realize that it sounds ridiculous. But seriously? This long in Haven and he doesn't even have an inkling of the Troubles?

"You're a _science fiction writer_ ," Nathan points out, and yeah, that too. 

"Yeah. _Science_ fiction. My books are based in facts, in the scientific method. It's what sets them apart from bargain bin werewolf romance."

Audrey rolls her eyes.  "You know, this kind of elitism is why his books suck," she mutters to Nathan.

"You read them?"

"One of em. It was no 'Unstake My Heart'."

"Anyways." Max makes a dismissive gesture. "This has been fun, but I will be complaining to the chief of police about his detectives' sense of humor."

"I'm sure he'll receive that complaint with interest," Nathan says with a commendably straight face.

"He'd better. And you know what? Just for you, detective, I'm going to add a new character to the novel, in your honor--"

"No!" Audrey yelps, but it's too late. A brilliant flash of white light blinds her.

When her eyes clear, there is a woman standing next to her. She is tall, as tall as Nathan, with wide violet eyes and long, luxurious silver hair. Her makeup is flawless, as is her skin, and Audrey can say that with some authority because she can see 90% of it. The woman is wearing what Audrey can only describe as a 'space chainmail bikini' and nothing else. Nathan had a gun at his belt; the woman has a tiny raygun.

"What power has brought me to this strange planet?" the woman asks, musically.

"What the hell?" Max Fabrey asks, much less melodically.

"Crap. Nathan, don't move--" Audrey starts, and then Fabrey apparently finally buys a clue, because he gapes at the woman he's created and then turns and bolts out of the back door of his house.

" _Crap_ ," Audrey says again, feelingly, and starts to go after him. She doesn't make it: the woman who used to be Nathan grabs her arm and holds her back. She is...weirdly strong.

"Please wait! You must return me to my ship, I am the chosen warrior priestess of Xhosiania, my people need me!"

"Ugh, really?" She hears a car start up outside. Perfect, just perfect. She grabs her belt radio. "Laverne I need an APB out on a dark green four-door Acura, license plate Charlie-four-Bravo-two-nine."

"Sure thing, hon. Nathan there?"

The woman reaches for Audrey's radio.

"Is that a communicator? Excellent, I must call my loyal guard to fetch me."

"Ah, nope, definitely not, Nathan is not here." Audrey ends the call and looks up at the 'chosen warrior priestess' who has replaced her partner. Those eyes are startling, definitely more so even than Duke's when he does his Hulk thing. "Nathan. You in there at all? Come on, give me some sign here."

"I know not of what you speak." The woman looks around the house in what appears to be genteel bafflement. "This place is strange, and not very clean." Well she's got that right. Max Fabrey could spend some time on home maintenance. "What manner of ship is it?"

"Right now? A Failboat." There is no one around to appreciate that manifestly awesome joke, so Audrey high-fives herself. Nathan would have groaned and shaken his head at her, if he wasn't a mostly-naked warrior priestess right now.

"I do not understand."

"Yeah, I know. All right. I probably don't want to hear this, but what's your name?"

"Excalibra," the woman proclaims proudly.

"Okay, how is this guy even published."

~~~

Audrey, being a highly trained crisis management expert, comes up with a three-step plan.

Step one: find Excalibra some clothes. Step two: find Excalibra a babysitter. Step three: find Max Fabrey and reverse this.

Step one she accomplishes by raiding Max Fabrey's house. His fiancé left him three days ago--presumably what triggered his Trouble--and her clothes are still in the bedroom. Excalibra is not on board for putting on an NYU hoodie, but she does accept a tank-top and jeans to go over her chainmail. Audrey cannot understand what would possess a person to wear metal underwear, but then again, it wasn't really her choice. Max doesn't seem to be into aspects of realism like 'chafing'.

As she gets dressed, Excalibra outlines for Audrey what she insists on calling the "plight of her people".

"We are a simple folk, dedicated to our families and the worship of our goddess. But our lands lie upon vast deposits of the mineral rubonium, prized by the Galactic Alliance for its role in their new grav-engines. We are happy to trade with the Alliance and count them our friends. But these past moons a new off-worlder has come, calling himself a representative of the Swarm."

She pauses significantly, as if Audrey should have some reaction to that. She does not.

"My father, the high priest, thinks this newcomer is a friend, but I know better. I have seen him sneaking around the mines and I do not trust him. So now I seek passage to Alliance Central to request aid and counsel. I have finished."

It takes Audrey a second to realize she means finished dressing, not finished with her story. She turns back around--she's been giving Excalibra privacy to change, even though she showed up mostly naked, has nothing Audrey hasn't seen before, and is actually Audrey's partner whom she's seen naked multiple times--and nods in satisfaction at the now more-normal looking woman she sees. In jeans and a t-shirt, the hair and eyes can be rationalized as a weird fashion statement. The shirt is too small, really more of a crop top thanks to Excalibra's height, but it'll do.

"You're a ripoff of an original series Star Trek plot," she informs her, because she can't not say it. "And yeah, I know, that means nothing to you. I'm telling Nathan when he gets back, though, and he's going to be disgusted. Come on, we need to get moving."

"Ah, excellent, to the star docks. Do you know of a starship pilot with a rough exterior but a heart of gold whom I might exchange witty banter with, seemingly find disgusting, and eventually fall in love with?"

" _Lord_." Audrey is about to break the news to her as gently as possible, but then something occurs to her. "Actually? You know what, close enough."

"This is an odd star dock," Excalibra says when they pull up into the Gull's parking lot.

"Yeah, well we're a small town." Audrey puts the Bronco into park with some difficulty (Nathan drove them to Fabrey's house, and she's pretty sure he would cry if he'd seen how she handled his beloved car, but she wasn't exactly going to let Excalibra behind the wheel) and hops out.

"This way." She tows Excalibra into the bar and finds who she's looking for immediately: Duke is sitting on a stool frowning at a tablet, one hand tangled in his hair like he's been running his fingers through it. There are only a couple patrons in this early, which is a blessing.

"Officer Parker." Duke's face when he sees her is...well, she feels guilty about letting it make her feel good, but it does. His eyes lighten; the lines of his cheeks ease; his mouth goes from a pressed frown to a loose smile, one side quirked up. "Here to help me do inventory?"

"Nope. Need a favor." His smile skews a little rueful, but stays in place.

"Thought you might. Can I resolve this purchase order mess first? For future reference, screen your employees for ability to distinguish between 'seven' and 'seventeen' before letting them enter a p.o."

"Sounds fascinating. You can tell your new friend all about it while you keep her busy and don't let her leave this room." Audrey gestures Excalibra forward. "Duke, this is Excalibra."

Duke's eyebrows shoot up. As his gaze takes a nice leisurely trip from Excalibra's supermodel-esque face to her tight shirt to her long legs and back again, Audrey realizes she may have made a miscalculation.

"It is an absolute _pleasure_." Duke grins much too wide and holds out a hand to shake. Excalibra stares at it. He waits a second longer, then makes a sort of 'oh well' wrist flip and lowers it again. "Duke Crocker, at your service. Can I get you a drink?"

"Yeah, better not," Audrey breaks in, the spectre of drunk warrior priestess unfolding horrifically in her mind. "Excalibra why don't you go find a seat at a table."

"I shall do so." Excalibra tosses her head, a little like a horse. A cloud of shining silver hair rises and falls in a rippling wave. "And as for you, rogue. I am familiar with your type. Your blandishments shall not test my vows." She gives Duke a look of haughty scorn. Then she winks. Audrey kind of wants to applaud, honestly. Duke's mouth hangs open as Excalibra sways her way to one of the tables.

"Audrey you are a _good friend_ ," he says devoutly. She grins.

"Yeah just one problem. That's Nathan."

Duke blinks. He raises a finger on one hand as if he's about to say something. Pauses. Looks at Excalibra. Looks back at Audrey.

"...you sure?"

"Yes."

"Like, how sure?"

She explains. Halfway through the story Duke starts making muffled choking noises. When she gets to the part about the metal bikini, he gently lowers his head to the bar, hiccups out a strained giggle, and then starts howling with laughter.

"Yeah, okay, laugh it up, but we need to change him back."

"Why?" Duke gasps, wiping his eyes of tears. "Audrey seriously, just hear me out, _why_?"

"Because Haven needs a chief of police, not a science fiction pinup."

"Can't really say I agree with you there, honestly."

She gives him a look. He smiles innocently.

"Really, next time a Trouble shows up you want her on the case?"

"Hey, give her a shot, she could learn."

"I'm not sure she could, actually." Audrey lowers her voice a little, to make sure Excalibra is out of earshot. "From what I can tell, all she really is is a concept and vague plotline. I don't think she has a full personality. This is not a well-developed character."

"Looks pretty developed to me."

"Seriously, Duke? Seriously. Also, still Nathan."

He winces. "Right, yep, my bad."

"So I'm going to find Max and fix this, but I need you to watch her and make sure she doesn't try to, I don't know, leave the planet. Think you can manage that?"

Duke glances at Excalibra, who is resting her head on one hand and gazing out the window at the sea. She must feel eyes on her because she looks up, meets his gaze, and then pointedly turns her head away huffily.

"It's wrong to sleep with your best frenemy while he's a magical space princess who has no idea what's going on and can't give informed consent," Audrey says.

"I know that!" Duke yelps. Every head in the room turns to look at him, and he groans and lowers his voice. "Seriously, Audrey? You think I'd do that?"

"I just wanted to make sure." She pats his shoulder reassuringly. "Also apparently she's in the market for a rogue with a heart of gold, so, you know, good luck with that."

"Good thing my heart is made of lead. Lead, booze, and unmarked bills."

"Sure it is." Audrey levers herself up from her seat and makes for the door. "Have fun you two! I'll call when I have an update."

"I want hazard pay!" Duke calls after her, which she pretends not to hear because honestly they probably should be paying him some kind of contractor fee at this point.

The details of tracking Max Fabrey down are banal: APB pings his car, she follows, and finds him in the bookstore surrounded by character-ified people. Two King Arthur-y knights are squaring off warily in the front; a little bit past them there is _another_ abnormally tall, stacked, and skimpily-clad woman who is hefting a spear thoughtfully at a table display.

"Hey, no need for that," Audrey says, and barely ducks in time as the woman whirls and flings the spear at her head instead. Behind her the front window shatters. "Hey!"

"That woman disturbs the peace of this small hamlet!" The noise broke the knights out of their sword-measuring contest, apparently.

"The woman uses men's weapons!"

"I can best any man in battle! And I will, until a hero comes under my tutelage and gains my respect through his pluck and ingenuity! He will defeat me in battle despite having trained for a significantly less amount of time! Thus winning my love and devotion, regardless of his lack of other attractive qualities!" the woman declares.

Audrey leaves them to that conversation, and heads towards the back of the store. She finds Max Fabrey at the end of a row of books, staring at the Local Authors display of his novels.

All she really wants is to insult his creativity, but she plays it empathetic. Yes it's so sad his fiancé left. Yes she definitely should have said something sooner instead of just picking up and moving to Vermont. Maybe the right way to handle this would be to get some therapy, instead of retreating into a fantasy world?

She's patting his back gingerly when her phone rings.

"Parker?" she hears over the line, and her heart simultaneously rises and sinks. It's Nathan, his intonation and emphasis, but it's still Excalibra's voice.

"You okay?" she asks anyways, and isn't surprised when he answers:

"Not quite."

"Is that a 'not quite' as in 'I'm still a warrior priestess in metal underwear'?"

"Hmm." That's a 'the answer is yes but I don't like it' Wournos hum. She sighs.

"But you're back to normal mentally?"

"Mostly. Real worried about my fake village's fake political situation." So he knows it's false but he still can't shake the feeling? Great. "Also got the persistent urge to flirt-fight with Duke."

"Well, it is Tuesday."

"I told you that in _confidence_ , Parker."

"My bad." She grins, knows he'll be able to hear it in her voice even though he can't see it. "I'm working on it, hang in there. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Or contemplate, in detail, and then tell you about while--" He hangs up on her. She cackles a little bit, delighted that her master plan to keep sticking Nathan and Duke in awkward situations until she gets the result she wants appears to be proceeding apace.

"So." She turns back to Max. "We're making progress, but--"

"What's going on?" The spear-wielding woman from earlier sticks her head around the bookcase. "You! You showed up right before this happened, did you do this to me?"

"You know you're not supposed to be like this?" Audrey asks. Just like Nathan; that's good, that means it's probably wearing off most people he's character-ified.

"Yeah, uh, I'm definitely not. Why am I white? And prehistoric?"

 _Yeah, Max, why_ **_are_** _all your characters white?_ Audrey decides to sit on that question temporarily. Max makes a petulant sort of grimace.

"Serena isn't prehistoric, she's a tribeswoman."

That's completely beside the point, and Audrey is about to say so when in front of her, the woman's eyes go blank. Her face drops from a grimace of annoyed confusion into stark, flat lines; her shoulders re-settle into a completely different posture, from dignified to feral.

"Yes. I am a tribeswoman. My people are nomadic. I will tutor the hero in the way of the warrior," she recites, vacantly. Wow that's creepy.

"What just happened?" Max demands, backing away from his creation. Audrey thinks about that question, and slowly an answer starts to take shape.

"You talked about her like she was real, and she became more real. Max, you know your characters aren't people, right?"

"Of course I know that." He doesn't sound fully convinced. Yep, there's the issue, right there.

"I need you to really believe that. That your fantasy worlds are less real than this one...and that creating an endless stream of one-dimensional fantasy women won't replace your fiance. If you believe it, I need you to say it. Say she's not real."

"She's…" Max looks torn. Audrey is three seconds from smacking him upside the head. She restrains herself with difficulty. "She's not real. None of them are real."

There we go. Audrey is looking right at 'Serena' when she changes back, and it's kind of fascinating: in less than a second she goes from tall and pale in tattered animal skins to short and dark, with a floral dress. She shakes herself, hard.

"Ugh, _thank_ you. That 'nomadic tribeswoman' thing is super racist, by the way." Well thank goodness someone said it. "And...oh my god, you turned my girlfriend into a knight! Mei? You okay babe?"

She disappears around the edge of the bookshelf. Audrey follows, and sees that the two knights have indeed been restored. She's willing to bet everyone he transformed over the last two days has been.

This is one of those Troubles where the person responsible hasn't actually broken any laws, so Audrey can't really do anything with Max except recommend he work things out with his ex and _strongly_ recommend he not get overly invested in any of his characters. After that she gets to take witness statements for Nathan's secret files, and then she can finally call her partner again.

"All fixed, never want to talk about it again," is how he answers the phone. Nathan 'No Fun' Wournos, everybody.

"Okay, okay, just two questions and then I will never mention it again."

"Parker…"

"Just two!"

"Fine, what."

"First, what was your favorite thing about being a woman. And you can't say being able to feel, it doesn't count."

There is a very loud sigh, crackly through the phone.

"Well I did have very nice hair," Nathan deadpans.

"The hair? Wournos come on."

"Hey, don't knock it, baldness runs in my adopted family."

He's such a smartass. Audrey rolls her eyes and hopes her fond smile isn't too stupid-looking.

"Fine. Second question: how close, on a scale from one to 'we're married now', did you get to making out with Duke?"

"Hanging up now."

"Come on, Nathan, I need to know! It's vital to my ability to help the Troubles!"

"Goodbye Parker."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter has some discussion of and/or reference to cissexism, transmisogynoir, sexual assault, and race and policing in the US. Nothing bad happens to anyone! But those themes are present. I've done my best to handle them respectfully, please do let me know if I messed up.

It's a universal truth in Audrey's opinion that relationship problems never come from the direction you think they will. She expected, when she finally got her way and her, Nathan and Duke started doing this whole...thing, that she was going to be constantly playing peacemaker between them, and that eventually she would get fed up and have to ultimatum a bitch.

Somehow though, now that they're having sex, Duke and Nathan barely ever fight. She doesn't get it; there were real problems there, problems that went beyond re-directed sexual tension. She can't imagine they resolved them somehow without ever talking about it, but the fact remains that they're good. It's easy between them, like they've picked up the rhythm of an old song.

Instead all of Audrey's problems at this moment in time are coming from the fact that they are three very different people, with very different ideas about normal, acceptable etiquette.

"You use a dish, you wash it. I know you were, literally, raised in a barn, but--"

"That is not funny, you think you're funny but you're not--"

"I think I'm an adult who has the common courtesy to--"

"Okay seriously? It was one dish in the sink for like a day, you don't think maybe you're overreacting a little?"

Nathan, as the noncombatant who does his dishes but doesn't have strong feelings about it, has long since bowed out of the conversation. The other officers on this case, whose names Audrey is going to remember in just a moment, have likewise vacated the premises. She and Duke are now standing outside a crime scene, bickering about dishes as passersby laugh at them. Threesomes: the glamour, the intrigue.

"One dish!" Duke makes an astounded face. Yeah, okay, so maybe it's been more like a few dishes a week. The last time Audrey--or, her memories at least--lived with another human being was college dorms, where dishes weren't a big factor; before that was foster homes, where they had a chore chart. She is not practiced in this whole 'sharing space with other adults' thing.

"Okay, it's more than that. But do ya have to blow a gasket over it?"

"Yes, actually, yes I do, it is my boat--"

"We do not have to always sleep on your boat, you know, I have an apartment--"

"I'm aware, I am in fact your landlord which when I say it out loud now is actually kind of weird, but my point is--"

" _My_ point is I lead a really hectic life, and--"

"Not the point, _not the point_!" Duke's hand gestures have reached a crescendo of flamboyance. The group of high school girls coming down the street are staring.

"Okay, enlighten me, what is your point?"

"The point is: get the hell into the kitchen and do some dishes, woman."

The high school girls gasp, and all three raise their carefully penciled eyebrows in disdain.

"Jerk," one of them mutters as they walk past.

"What? Oh, no, come on, there was _context_!" Duke calls after them, dismayed. Audrey sniggers when they don't so much as turn around. She feels she has definitely won this argument based on the audience vote, which is a pretty good measure in her book.

She turns back to Duke. And blinks.

This is weird. There's...okay, so he looks different, he definitely looks different, but she can't for the life of her pick out _how_ or _why_. It takes another full second of staring before her brain finally starts to catalogue all of the little ways he's changed.

His jaw is thinner, and he's lost his carefully-disheveled beard and moustache. He...is his face shorter? Or are his eyes further up somehow? She can't tell, just knows it's altered. His hair is longer...no, wait, no it isn't, it's just a little bit of a different shape around the hairline, or maybe his face shape is making his hair _look_ different? And something about his body is different, because his shirt falls differently, but she can't pick out exactly what.

"What?" he asks. His voice is the same, and it's the odd thought that it sounds strange coming from him that finally clues her in: Duke looks like a woman. If you asked her to explain why, she wouldn't be able to tell you; there's nothing obvious or even clearly identifiable that gives her that sense, he just...does. A thousand little shifts that she wouldn't have thought could make any difference at all have somehow added up.

"You're...those girls. Dammit, it had to have been one of those girls." She didn't even see what direction they went in. She turns to look after them, hoping against hope they might still be in sight, but no luck. She grabs her notebook and jots down the best description she can recall: two had dark skin and one was pale, one had a nose piercing, did one maybe have a blue dress on? Damn. That's not a full description, and she's not putting out an APB on three teenage girls without a good reason.

"Audrey. Audrey! What the hell!"

Duke has no idea anything has changed, and why would he? Even looking right at him Audrey can barely pinpoint what's giving her that weird mental dissonance.

"You got hit with a Trouble," she informs him, and he freezes at once. That's such a learned Haven reflex it's actually kind of funny: when something goes wrong you stop moving, because you know firsthand that ripple effects suck and who knows what's been done to you this time.

"Okay, give me the damage. What and how bad?" Duke asks, resigned. She pats his shoulder reassuringly, and finds another change: he lost muscle mass there. If that doesn't come back he's going to be pissed, she knows how hard he works for it. Daily dawn yoga is more of a commitment to a Lifestyle than _she's_ willing to make. 

"Not bad at all. You...I don't know how to say this, actually, because you don't look...hm. You've been...it's made you…" She fumbles for a minute, staring at his face, and then gives up. "Actually, I'm just going to find you a mirror, because I can't figure out how to phrase this right."

There are public bathrooms in the restaurant across the street, but she honestly can't tell which one Duke should go into right now and that seems like a mess they don't want to invite. Instead she drags him to the cruiser still parked next to the scene of the B&E they were, nominally, investigating, and pulls him inside. The mirrors in the sunshades aren't huge, but there's enough reflection for Duke to do a double-take and reach up to feel his face.

"Damn Trouble took my moustache." He peers closer, craning his neck to see. "Can't quite tell what else, though."

"It's subtle," she agrees.

"I look like my own twin sister."

"Kind of, yeah."

Duke's eyes go very wide all of a sudden and he fumbles at the button on his jeans. She watches with interest--look, they're fucking and neither of them has much shame, she's not going to turn away in modesty unless he asks her to--as he shoves a hand into his briefs and then lets out a sigh of...relief? Disappointment?

"Still there."

"So this isn't about genitals."

"Apparently not."

"Then what is it about?" She frowns, puzzled. Troubles seldom work quickly and cleanly--she's reminded of the 'telepathy' Trouble that wasn't, that was clearly more complicated than that--but she's having issues putting her finger on what exactly this one even does. 

"Aw, look!" Duke appears delighted; he pokes at the little layer of tummy fat he has acquired, softening his toned stomach slightly though the lines of his abs are still clearly visible. He shoves his pants down a little further; he has extra fat on his hips now, too. He still obviously has the same body type, long and lean, but it's a slightly different leanness now.

"Okay, that's cute," she admits. "Can I?"

"Officer Parker, feeling me up in public! Yeah, go for it."

She pets his stomach. His skin feels exactly the same, warm and smooth, but underneath instead of the hard line of muscle she's used to it feels more like her own stomach, toned but still soft on top.

"Hey do I have…" Duke pulls his shirts up further, and strains to look. "I have tits! Why wasn't that the first thing we noticed?"

"You're wearing an undershirt, two shirts, and a cardigan. You could smuggle a watermelon under there and no one would be able to tell."

"...point."

Audrey leaves Duke to go on cataloguing the changes, and sits back in her seat to think. The things that have changed all seem to have one thing in common: they're visible to a casual observer. So it's not about giving someone a particular body, it's about making other people perceive them as a woman? But then why not go full out, change their clothes and hair and makeup to be as "feminine" as possible? As of right now Duke is clearly, unmistakably himself, and very ambiguous; Audrey can't quite predict how someone who doesn't know him would decide to refer to him gender-wise, and anyone who does know him, they're just going to be confused as hell.

Maybe for now she should stop trying to figure out exactly what happened, and work on the "who did it" instead.

"I'm going to go to the high school, see if anyone recognizes my description of those three teens. I'd say you should come with, but...I'm not sure you want to parade around town like this."

Duke opens his mouth, then gets an arrested look like his brain bit into something sour and closes it again. She kind of loves when this happens, honestly; one of her favorite Duke faces is the 'stuck halfway through a thought and regretting everything about my life.'

"No, yeah, that's fair enough. I'll go hang out at the Gull. See how many staff notice and ask what the hell is going on. I'm going to time it, actually. The person who takes longest is getting a bonus."

Audrey rolls her eyes, but fondly. Trust Duke to see the upside in this. Something is bugging her, though, and when she realizes what it is she's hit with a very sudden, very real shock of fear.

"Duke, wait! Wait."

"What?" He's halfway out the door already, only held back by her sudden white-knuckled grip on his wrist.

"That's actually a really bad idea."

"Why? You think this Trouble could be dangerous after all?"

"Not...inherently, but yes." He gestures vaguely, not understanding. "Duke, right now when people look at you they're going to have trouble reading your gender...or they're going to read you as trans. And I don't mean to stereotype, but small town Maine? That is dangerous. I don't think you should walk around like this, definitely not in places where you might be recognized."

He blinks at her, mouth open a little in surprise. "Audrey, I can take care of myself. Been queer in Haven for thirty-some years now, you know."

"Not like this." She holds his eyes for a long moment, not sure if she needs to explain more or not. Duke's been around the world, seen plenty of shit, but she was FBI (well, sort of). She has statistics crowding her mind, along with much more visceral memories of foster siblings, young trans women who told her all about how people treated them, how people reacted. Even people you thought you knew, the ones you thought cared about you.

Duke reads something, in her face and the white-knuckled grip she has on his arm. He shuts the car door and sits back.

"Your call, Officer Parker." She is absurdly calmed by the way he says that like a term of endearment. "Anything you need, you know that."

"Thanks." She blows out a breath, gets her protective instincts back under control. "I have an idea. Come with me after all. But first, let me make you look a little bit less like you?"

"...sure?" He gives her a dubious look, but Duke is always dubious about her genius plans. She's pretty sure this is a good one.

He lets her undo his hairstyle and re-make his ponytail, setting it higher up on his head and pulling his hair into it more firmly and then clipping the bangs back with a couple of bobby pins. When she's done he reaches up gingerly to poke at it.

"You should do my hair more often, this feels fancy. Can you do braids next time?"

"Sure. Put this on." He makes a face at her spare sports bra that she fished from her go bag in the back.

"Do I have to? Honestly I'm more about the non-constricting in my clothing choices."

"You don't have to. But if we have to run at all, you're gonna find out quickly why it's a good idea."

"Uncomfortable?"

"Painful."

"Damn, fine." He pulls his various layers over his head with no further delay--she's pretty sure Duke would just walk around shirtless all the time if he could get away with it--and struggles into the bra. "Is it on right?"

"Yeah, but you have a strap twisted, here." It's kind of nice, settling the straps right on his shoulders and smoothing them down. Audrey's never had a real girlfriend, not that she remembers at any rate, but this sort of thing is what she fantasizes about sometimes. Helping each other get ready for the day, sharing routines and experiences of existing as a woman in the world with affection and intimacy.

When she comes back from that thought digression, Duke is looking at her knowingly. She wonders how much was visible on her face, at least to someone who knows her as well as him.

"Um. Your sweater is kind of distinctive, how about you stick with the undershirt?" She gets them back on track, and he raises his eyebrows but goes with it. Once he's pulled his plain cotton tank back on, she takes his belt away; the buckle is a seagull, which is a little too Duke.

"My pants are gonna fall down, and then you'll arrest me for public nudity."

"They will not, just settle them a little--like that."

"Huh, that's...why do they look like that now?"

"I'm not sure. I think maybe they catch on your hips differently."

Finally, she sits back and surveys her handiwork. Hair pulled back and up, highlighting the new lines of the face. Necklaces still there; they mean a lot to him, she wouldn't take them away lightly, and they've always been his most femme touch anyways. Thin cotton shirt, clinging to the outline of his chest and where his waist dips in. Pants hanging a little loose on his hips.

The person sitting next to her in the car still looks a bit like Duke's sister, but mostly, they look like a cute butch woman with a rakish tilt to their mouth.

Duke pulls down the sunshade mirror again, and his mouth drops open. After a moment, he breaks into a grin.

"Holy shit, I am the gayest woman I've ever seen."

Audrey snorts. "Pretty sure you're still bi."

"Okay, yes, but look at me. I should be jogging in the park making soccer moms question their lives. I should be tending bar at a gay club and playing ultimate frisbee on the weekends. I am full-on Sporty Lesbian, don't tell me you're not seeing this."

"Fine, you're not wrong." In fact Duke bears a strong resemblance to the women Audrey covertly watches at the gym, and makes herself look away from before her staring gets creepy.

"Damn right I'm not, you--" He pauses, and a delighted understanding dawns in the curve of his mouth. "You _like_ it. Does this mean I'm finally getting an answer about your type?"

Duke has been pestering her to describe the type of woman she's into for months. He's also intermittently tried to set her up with bar patrons and random civilians, in what she's pretty sure was some kind of pigtail-pulling attempt to pretend he was A Good Platonic Friend. He stopped that recently, obviously, but apparently the question lingered.

She groans. "My type is people who help me solve Troubles." Not...actually a lie. "Come on, let's go."

He follows her out of the car happily, still grinning. They set off towards the high school, as Audrey dials Nathan. She gets his voicemail.

"Hey Nathan, caught another case. No crime has actually been committed as far as I can tell, but Duke and I are gonna see if we can resolve it. He--" She pauses to consider how much to say right now, and that's when Duke casually picks up her hand. She gives him the frowny eyebrows of "stop dicking around"; he smiles challengingly and swings their linked fingers a little.

Abruptly, it sinks in that she is walking down the street holding hands with someone that other people will perceive as a woman.

"I'll. Uhm. I'll keep you updated." Audrey ends the call. To her horror, she starts to blush.

"You good?" Duke's giving her that through-the-lashes look he does when he wants to make it clear he's there for whatever she needs. If she asks him to, he'll drop her hand, pretend to be her cousin, a witness, whoever she says he is. She doesn't ask him to; instead she squeezes his fingers a little and ducks her head, at a loss to escape her sudden shyness. She's never...in public. With a girl. Duke's not a girl, he's her sort-of boyfriend. Why does she feel like this.

"Don't make fun of me okay," she mumbles, mortified but in this squirmy almost good way, and buries her face in his shoulder.

"Never." She feels lips brush the top of her head. People are watching, they always are in this damn town. It's going to be everywhere by tomorrow, Officer Parker and her _mysterious belle_. It makes her feel astonishingly good to think about.

"Are _you_ good?" She's still taking into his shoulder, but he seems to get the gist.

"I'm awesome. It's my life's work to scandalize Haven as much as humanly possible, and this is the most pleasant way I've ever done it. I've gotta find Nate and make out with him really publically too before this ends, and then I will truly be the Alpha Bisexual."

She knows he's joking around to distract her, but it's working. She manages to pick her head back up and then, daringly, press a kiss to his cheek. It's wind-roughened, as always.

"Come on, Alpha Bisexual, let's go solve this."

Their linked hands are convenient now, she can tow him along. He goes easily, winks at one of the pretending-to-have-urgent-business-in-the-window shopkeepers as they pass.

"I think I kinda get this Trouble," he says as they round the corner into the high school parking lot.

"You do?"

"Yeah. It's about...you know how there's that saying about walking in another person's shoes?"

"You hate shoes."

"I do. Besides the point, but accurate. My point is, this is the more realistic version of that. Not someone else's shoes, but if your own shoes were in their position. And by shoes I mean social context. You see?"

She squints at him, trying to parse that. "Nnnnno."

He's opening his mouth to try again when a car pulls into the lot and, astonishingly, the three teens from earlier pile out. Audrey has never had a suspect so conveniently show up in her _life_. The one with the nose ring--score one for Audrey's observational powers, there--glances at her and Duke's joined hands and gasps.

"Oh my god _cute_. Did you dump that guy? Good choice."

Duke makes a strangled noise of outrage. Audrey cannot look at him, or she's going to burst into laughter.

"About that. I'm Officer Parker with the Haven PD, can I ask you three some questions?" She reluctantly lets go of Duke to flash her badge.

"We didn't do anything wrong." The girls' postures turn wary instantly, and the white one moves slightly in front of her two Black friends, like she's trying to hide them behind her wide shoulders and big skirt. That's a good instinct, but it's not necessary here: Audrey knows how to tell the difference between fear and guilt. They really haven't done anything, but they don't think she's going to believe them. She makes sure to use her Troubles voice, nice and soft.

"No, I know that. I promise, just a couple questions. What are your names?"

"I'm Stacey. This is Amanda and Kaylee." Two of them are related. She's not sure if that makes them more or less likely to be the Troubled one. Stacey is short, curvy, pale; the sisters are taller, Amanda with a cloud of dark wavy hair around her head and Kaylee with bead-tipped braids.

"Nice to meet you. Have you girls heard of the Troubles?" She thought the direct approach might be the way to go here, and she was right; Amanda instantly stiffens. Audrey presses her advantage before she can get scared and bolt. "Amanda? Something you want to tell me?"

"....no."

"I think there is. I think you heard my friend say something rude--"

" _Context_!" Duke protests in an aggrieved whisper.

"--and thought he needed to be taught a lesson. Right?"

Amanda bites her lip. Her sister and friend know about her, it's obvious from how they're looking at her with worry but not shock. Finally, she sighs and her shoulders drop in surrender.

"That's...not how it works. It's a little complicated. When I see someone, like, misuse their power? Like if a parent hits their kid? My...thing, my Trouble, it takes the power away. So the parent turns into a kid too, or they don't have custody any more, or whatever."

"Wow. Wish we'd had you when the Rev was still around," Audrey says without thinking. Amanda tilts her head at her suspiciously.

"Am I arrested?"

"Nope. Don't know what I could possibly arrest you for. How long has this been going on? Do you know when it started?"

"Oh, I know." Her face turns hard and angry, and Audrey notices that she's gripped her friend Stacey's hand now, tight. "And if I tell you what it did to Mr. Westin, you _will_ arrest me. But I'm not sorry."

"She saved me," Stacey breaks in, emphatic, and Audrey can read between the lines here well enough.

"If you testify, I'll arrest _him_ ," she offers. Amanda shakes her head. She's probably about seventeen years old, and really kind of delicate-looking with her fine-boned features and big brown eyes, but Audrey knows that expression. It's the look of a woman who did the right thing, and damn the consequences and the guilt.

"Nothing left to arrest."

"Fine by me." They all stare at Audrey for that. She shrugs. True justice in Haven is rare enough that she'll take it, extrajudicial or not. "But I do need you to take back what you did to Duke."

The three girls turn to look at Duke. He gives a little three-fingered wave. They gasp.

"No _way_. That's that dude?" Amanda in particular seems stunned with what her Trouble has wrought. "But she's so cute!"

"Oh, and I wasn't before??"

"I made him a _girl_?"

" _Um_." Kaylee straightens her spine like a bird shaking water off. "You _mean_ you made him present with features that we are socialized to associate with female-ness." Audrey presses a hand to her mouth to stop a laugh coming out. This kid is a tiny gender theorist, this explains some things about how the Trouble manifested and is also freaking _adorable_.

"Right, yeah, sorry." Amanda is apparently used to being corrected by her younger sister, she accepts it with grace. "Are you...okay?"

"I'm good," Duke hastens to reassure her. "Sports bra is pressing on my ribs uncomfortably, but I got to hold my girlfriend's hand and freak out the straights, so on balance I'm calling this a win." They all giggle. He looks very pleased with himself.

"Amanda, have you ever taken back one of your Trouble's...I guess, punishments?" Audrey knows the answer before she even finishes the question. Amanda is shaking her head.

"No. This is the first time someone's been a decent person. Everyone else deserved to stay cursed."

"Flattered. Disturbed at people in general, but flattered," Duke mutters.

"You could try apologizing," Stacey says. Audrey nods; she was about to suggest the same.

"Apologi--!" Duke cuts himself off, but he continues to express the injustice of the situation with several sweeping hand gestures. "Apologize. _Fine_. Audrey, I'm sorry that I used language invoking the patriarchal structures and expectations placed on you by society in a discussion about your cleaning habits."

"Aw. I'm sorry I pushed you over the edge with my admittedly terrible cleaning habits," she returns, because fair's fair. They both wait for a long moment to see if anything changes. It doesn't.

"Damn, that was my best idea." Audrey huffs a little bit, and tries to think. "Most Troubles aren't really altruistic...maybe...apologize to Amanda?"

"But I'm not mad at him. I wasn't ever mad at him," Amanda protests.

"I'm sorry anyways? If it...scared you, or made you uncomfortable?" Duke offers. He means that one, as opposed to the apology to Audrey which was obviously forced.

"It really didn't. Guys at school say worse all the time."

"It was kinda bad hearing it from an adult, though," Kaylee offers. Audrey nods absently, because that's valid, then pauses, struck with a sudden suspicion.

"So, Amanda. You weren't particularly upset. But...Kaylee was?" They all turn to look at Kaylee. Her eyes go wide.

"Okay, no. I cannot be the one doing this."

"Are you sure? Kaylee has anything happened recently? Maybe something to do with someone in a position of authority?"

"No!" Kaylee makes a frantic hand motion, like she's trying to bat Audrey's words away. She's obviously upset, and while Audrey is pretty sure that's not enough to activate this particular Trouble on its own, she doesn't want to take chances.

"Hey, it's okay--" She reaches out.

"Leave my sister alone!" Amanda shoulders herself in front of Audrey, blocking her view. "She's not Troubled, I am. And if you keep scaring her you're going to see that, up close."

Duke hisses between his teeth a little and takes a big step back. Audrey acknowledges that if she wasn't immune, she'd probably be pretty concerned right now.

"No one's angry with you, Kaylee, and I'm not going to do anything to you. I just want to talk. Something happened recently, right? Maybe I can help."

"I'm serious, leave her _alone_ \--"

"Mandy it's okay." Kaylee's head peeks out from behind her sister's shoulder. She sounds resigned. "She's a cop, it's not like she couldn't find out if she tried."

"Are you _sure_? You don't have to," Amanda insists.

"I just wanna help," Audrey says again, and Kaylee sighs and mumbles:

"They aren't letting me use the girl's bathroom at school. That's probably what did it."

Oh, kid. Audrey feels her eyes go very, very soft.

"Okay. Why don't we turn Duke back, and then I'm going to come down on this school like the wrath of god."

That startles a laugh out of Kaylee, and a suspicious huff of air out of Amanda.

"You don't have to do that."

"I kind of really do. With your Trouble active, discriminating against you isn't just wrong, it's a public danger," Audrey points out. Kaylee blinks.

"Dang."

"Yeah." Audrey looks to Duke, and he nods and sidles back into Kaylee's line of sight. Amanda is still hovering in front of her sister protectively, so he has to tilt his head to catch her eyes.

"I freaked you out a bit then, huh?"

"No! I mean, not really. It wasn't a big deal." Kaylee makes a dismissive gesture, a little hand flip.

"Maybe not a big deal, but I still shouldn't have done it."

Audrey treasures these moments when Duke gets serious for real. When he focuses, he always seems to know the right thing to say. She can watch it happen across his face, the way he reads a person's cues and sorts through them for the words that aren't just most effective, but most _kind_. Kaylee meets Duke's gaze hesitantly, but she already looks reassured. Serious-Duke is a pro at non-threatening eye contact, gentle and half smiling.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It's fine to joke with my--uh. My...partner?" Awkward, apparently the labels conversation can no longer be put off between the three of them, "but in public I should've considered how it would sound to anyone else. I'll be more careful. A girl shouldn't hear that kind of stuff from an adult."

"Thanks," Kaylee mumbles, and while she's too dark to visibly blush, Audrey would bet good money she's doing it with how she ducks her chin.

"Oh, _weird_ ," Amanda says, staring at Duke's face. Duke claps a hand to his cheek.

"Something's changed?"

It has. With his features back to normal, the makeover Audrey gave him is a whole different look now. He looks like he's getting ready for a yoga class, and also a little bit like he wants everyone to be really, really clear that he's not straight. She wonders if she can get Duke to agree to a high ponytail more often. Maybe he'll let her paint his nails too, go just aggressively queer with the whole package.

"Yep, you're good."

"Yes! Argh, okay, _no more bra_." It took Audrey several years to master the maneuver of getting her bra off without taking off her shirt first, but desperation appears to be the mother of invention because Duke has managed it on his first try. He stuffs the bra into his pants pocket vindictively.

"Yeah, I know that feel," Stacey agrees.

"Also now my pants _are_ falling down and my belt is in your car." Duke hitches up his waistband crankily.

"Please keep your pants up until we're out of the _high school_ parking lot."

"Good call. But can I just point out that this is your fault?" Audrey grins, accepting the justice in that. "And hey, speaking of setting the record straight: Officer Parker would you like to explain to these nice ladies _why_ we had to have a conversation about your dishes?"

He gestures at her, clearly teasing, but suddenly Audrey realizes: it's not actually funny at all.

"...because you've been cleaning up after people your entire life, since you were much too young, and they took you for granted, and you don't want us to be like that."

Duke's eyes fly wide. "Woah. Woah! Too real! Audrey!"

"Sorry, sorry!" She did not mean to say that out loud, like that, in front of strangers. _Damn_ this 'real relationship' shit is hard. She grabs his hand, because he looks a little like he wants to bolt. "Sorry. I'm on board, though, I get it. Let's go home okay? Let's go home and I will let you make dinner because I am a terrible, terrible cook, and then I will do all the dishes like an equal partner in this terrifyingly adult relationship. Okay?"

"...okay. No more psychoanalysis in front of the kids, though. You're ruining my rep."

"You don't have a rep."

"I mean, he kinda does. He's the guy at the Gull who never cards," Stacey puts in. Duke startles like a shocked cat and mouths 'traitor' at her.

" _Seriously_ , Duke?"

"One drink! If they're underage they get one and then I kick 'em out!"

She glares at him, but she can't maintain it for long. Today has been one big object lesson in who this person is, and why she's right to have picked him. She feels something in her gaze change. Duke feels it too, from the way he goes quiet.

"Let's go home."

"Sure. It's been fun, kids." He gives the teens a little salute. They roll their eyes, unimpressed. "And hey Kaylee, bring your family over to the Gull one of these nights for dinner. On me, but in return you gotta tell me how to fix up our bathrooms. Deal?"

"...deal." Kaylee dimples adorably and bumps Duke's fist when he offers it.

God _dammit_ Audrey is in love with him. Fine. _Fine_. Question of whether she can really love two people at once: fucking answered. FINE.

"I'll do my dishes forever."

"....oh...kay?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most explicit thing I've ever written. And it's only dialogue, because I got really embarrassed. /o\ Sorry. Hope you like it.

"Whoa, wait, what is--"  
  
"OH my god what, oh, what--"  
  
"Uh--"  
  
"Nathan if you stop right now I will murder you, I will kill you with no regrets."  
  
" _I'm_ Nathan."  
  
"..."  
  
"..."  
  
"Body swapping? Again?"  
  
"Speak for yourself, some of us were immune last time. Oh, what--Duke, don't clench like that, I can feel it! Or, sort of?"  
  
"I can't help it! Christ, is this how it always feels for you? Nate buddy you can't even imagine--"  
  
"This is not the first time you've had my dick in you."  
  
" _Not the same_. Not even remotely the same."  
  
"We should stop."  
  
"What, why???"  
  
"Because this is a Trouble."  
  
"It'll still be a Trouble in twenty minutes, only it'll be a Trouble that's given me multiple orgasms, Audrey a chance to fuck me with no toys required, and you the ability to feel your dick. Or, my dick, technically. Whatever."  
  
"Parker, are you...?"  
  
"This is _really weird_."  
  
"...Nathan's right. If you're not comfortable we should stop."  
  
"I...kind of want to keep going."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"If you don't want to Nathan that's okay, we'll stop. But if you're okay...I mean, I've definitely wanted to try this. Look what I can _do_ , if I just move..."  
  
"Oh, ohhhhhh!"  
  
"Duke--I mean, Parker!"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Just...be careful. You can't feel how hard or fast you're going, you have to make sure not to hurt her. Him. Shut up Duke, you know what I mean."  
  
"I think you mean you want to keep going. Right?"  
  
"...yeah."  
  
"You sure? It's okay. We don't have to, promise."  
  
"No, I. I mean. Yeah. I...I want to."  
  
"Yes! We are in business! Audrey let's go, come on, move, please move, yeah _yeah_ like _that, so good_ \--"  
  
"It is so weird to hear that coming from your voice."  
  
"It really is. I get why-- _uhm_ \--why you always want us to talk, now, though. It really does make all the difference, when you-- _hah_ \--when you can't feel it."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Ah, ah, harder, harder, yes like that!"  
  
"So weird--like that, Duke? Is that--good, okay, yeah. You-- _hah_ \--okay over there Nathan? Do you need--"  
  
"I can feel this for the first time in over a year, doin' just fine."  
  
"Can you move just a little bit, a little, fuck! How do you have so many good angles, fuck! Nathan save that for me, okay, promise, you are so next, I wanna see my own body fuck me--"  
  
"Ah, fuck!"  
  
"Did you just…?"  
  
"Ah, ah, sorry!"  
  
"Audrey!"  
  
"I'm _sorry_ , I've never had a penis before and I can't even feel this one, how was I supposed to know I was close?"  
  
"Unbelievable, just completely...oh that feels weird...Nathan. Nathan, come on, please. Condom. Come on!"  
  
"Breathe, Duke. I'm right here."  
  
"Yeah, but I need you to be right there, so if you could just hurry your numb ass--mm!"  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Mmm."  
  
"Good?"  
  
"Oh, mm, yeah...okay, my dick is _awesome_."  
  
"Oh, right, it's all your body, nothing to do with the guy controlling it."  
  
"Yep. Ah, _yeah_. Faster."  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Come on!"  
  
"Deal with it."  
  
"You're such a--oh! Oh, oh, Audrey are you sure you wanna--with Nathan's Trouble--"  
  
"I get this body off several times a week, numb fingers aren't going to make that much difference."  
  
"Whatever you say. Oh, oh, it's so...ah that's so good. Don't--don't stop--I--oh, oh, oh, _ah_!"

"Oh, wow, I've never seen that from outside before, I'm...my face is weird when I come."

"I think it's cute. You-- _mm_ \--you wrinkle your nose."

"Yeah, apparently. You okay Duke?"

"Yeah, but, oh, oh, Nathan don't stop just yet, _please_."

"Not stopping."

"Good, just keep--keep--ah--Audrey what the hell, do you always come for three _years_ , what is this!"

"It's a two-part orgasm, it happens when I get really worked up. You're okay, here, if I--"

"Agh, _fuck_!"

"Is that a good--"

"It is, Nathan, he's good, don't worry."

"Nn--Nathan-- _Audrey_ \--"

"Right here, right here I've got you."

"I've--I've never--felt--"

"I know, I know. You're doing so well, you're doing it just right, sweetheart. You're almost there."

"God, you look...Sorry, I need to--Audrey, can I come?"

"Don't ask me, ask Duke!"

"But I always ask you."

" _Oh._ "

"Oh _fuck_ \--"

" _Yes_ , Nathan, now!"

" _Ah_!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Whoo. _Okay_."

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"Let's never solve this Trouble."

"You realize that if you stay Audrey, you have to go to work as Audrey. At the police station. As a police officer."

"...shit."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work kicked my ass this week, sorry for the delay! Last two chapters at once, to make up for it.
> 
> Note for this chapter: I had two choices of how to handle the story I wanted to write, and I wasn't sure which one was the right way to go. Is it more problematic to make some of Audrey's past imprints non-white and therefore have a white woman inhabit/appropriate the experiences of people of color, or to make all the past imprints white and leave the White Savior narrative of the show completely unchallenged? I ended up going with the second option, but that doesn't have to be the case. Readers of color, let me know in the comments what you think! I'm totally open to an overhaul of this chapter.

It's strange, what happens when Charlotte chooses Audrey over Mara. Audrey doesn't, as she feared, get Mara's memories or personality or influence or any hint of her: Mara is dead. But what she gets instead, and if Charlotte is to be believed utterly unexpectedly, is everyone else.

Audrey has been 17 other people in the last 500 years, and now she knows their names.

Juliana, overlay number one, the first one who had to come in and crowd Mara out of her own head, was well-chosen: she was a force of nature and knew it, slammed through every obstacle in her way and never once apologized as long as she believed she was doing right. She was British, but all the memories Audrey has from her are of working and living with the Mi'kmaq instead; they were the ones in a position to seek out and help with the Troubled, while the colonists howled about witches.

Charity, Bess, Tristan, Meredith, and Antimony all did the same, their allies were Mi'kmaq or other members of the Wapnaki. Charity and Bess both fled husbands for a safe--ha--haven, but Charity was angrier about it, refused three offers to re-marry and marched into that Barn free and furious. Bess did re-marry, and poor Joeb lived to see her come back as Tristan. (She owed him a lot, Audrey realizes, for the grace with which he handled that.)

Tristan was a blacksmith, defensive when he came and beloved when he left. Meredith was a botanist, soft-spoken but definitely not shy. Antimony was too gentle for the times she found herself in, hated that the disputes between the French and British colonists engulfed her Penobscot hosts too. She was the only one to ever call the Barn before the Hunter came: she thought that if she took the Troubles out of the equation, the people she loved could survive the coming war.

She was wrong. By the time Edith stepped off the boat in Tuwiowok, the land had been ceded to the government of Massachusetts (Maine wouldn't become a state for years yet). Edith, of course, saw nothing wrong: Audrey is the only one in a position to see this loss stretch out over six personalities, more than 150 years. She can draw together the threads of the sicknesses Charity and Meredith tried to fight, the wars they all picked up a musket for and lost friends to, the few negotiations she was there to witness, and see it all come together into a long, slow, systematic destruction. She went into the Barn to try to help them; she didn't.

Of the hundreds of Native Maine families that welcomed her, helped her, obstructed her, loved her, for generations, perhaps forty remained in the area past 1800.  Audrey can pick out some of their descendants by last name or by Trouble: Duke, Vince, the Benton sisters, a few more (Jess Minnion has the same eyes as her great-great-great-great grandmother, who used to go on walks with Meredith trading the names of plants back and forth in their respective languages).

Audrey wants, badly, to drop back into her former selves for just a little while, show the people she loved and lost the pictures of who their children's children's children have become. She wants even more badly to have done more to preserve these people's legacies. She spends a lot of time in the weeks after being merged lying awake at night, seeing names and faces who never made it into a history book or town ledger. Haven's real founding families deserve better: if she lives, she swears to herself, she'll make sure people know the truth.

Edith, in the skeleton shell of a town whose living history she didn't remember, was a housekeeper and a widow who used her pain to help others heal. Then came Faith, who spoke too frankly and for whom the Barn came very early, as her breath was fading. Next Caroline, another widow but much happier about it, who was discretion personified regarding strange powers and pretty, curious girls both.

After Caroline was Ben. His journey to Haven was perhaps the most haphazard, shipwrecked right on the shores, and he was benignly bewildered most of his time there but did his best nevertheless. Then Joy, a study in contrasts, sharp of tongue but kind when a Trouble reared its head.

Catherine was a rancher's daughter and a historian, fascinated with Haven's history and honestly delighted when she realized how central to it she was. Veronica was stately in public and playful in private, and she had left someone behind her, someone she loved so dearly that Audrey hopes, with no way of knowing, that the real Veronica got her happy ending someday.

Sarah was an army nurse, unflinching in a crisis, open with her heart to the point of constantly bruising it. Lucy was a social worker, a mistress of multi-tasking and emotional triage. Audrey was--is--an FBI agent, who saved people but never seemed to quite fit with them afterwards. Lexie was a dancer-turned-bartender, always made the wrong choice in boyfriends but the right choice in friends.

And now Audrey is a person, her own person, with almost twenty other people swimming around inside of her and no intention of ever letting them go. She doesn't have their lives in as vivid detail as she does Audrey #1's, she doesn't know why. Most of them, the time before they came to Haven is more like she watched it as a movie than like she lived it. But their time in Haven? Those memories are hers, fully, just as real as yesterday. It's only about 15 years' worth, all told, but it is baffling, and overwhelming, and so, so precious.

Audrey Parker has a history, at last, one that belongs to her and that no one can take away.

And apparently for some of that history, she was a man.

It's not the first thing she picks up from the whirl of memories to dwell on. It's not even the fifth. (The fifth is the fact that she has slept with _so many Crockers_ , holy shit, what is up with that?? She finally forgives Nathan for Sarah, mostly because she at least remembers it now but a little bit because apparently it was his turn.)

She has a lot of time to sort things through: she and Duke spend a lot of quiet time together in the week or so after Mara's death, because apparently the only thing that can stop him from "blowing," as Mara threatened, is Audrey's proximity. (Turns out Mara didn't think to consider what would happen if she died but her body didn't; Duke is fine as long as Audrey is within twenty feet.)

For the first few days neither of them wants to talk about it, so they don't. Their conversations are banal: what do you want for dinner, when is Nathan getting here, do you want to go for a walk. Domestic shit, which has never been Audrey's strong point and which 14/18ths of her agree is not theirs either.

She runs out of patience on the fourth day. Duke huffs out a resigned breath when she plops herself down at the table across from him, disrupting one of the multiple repair projects he's been working on.

"Okay, but you're going first and I need a drink," he says before she even opens her mouth.

"Oh, pour me one too." They have not been drinking too much this week, which is frankly impressive on all their parts.

He gets them both tumblers of whiskey. Audrey waits until he's taken a nice big mouthful to say:

"I had sex with your great-great uncle. And your great-great-great-great aunt."

He chokes. She cackles. He glares at her.

"Yeah, well, I _didn't_ have sex with your evil twin, so there."

She blinks. "I didn't think you had? Why...oh, she tried it?"

"A couple times. Apparently that would have been 'the fun way.'" As opposed to how they'd found him, tied naked to a chair covered in black handprints. The suggestion that Mara would have done this to him either way, that she would have slept with him and then still left him like that, confused and sick, makes Audrey's blood boil.

"She tried me too." Neither of them heard Nathan come in the door, and they both startle, hands going for their weapons. "Uh. Sorry."

"No, it's okay, sit." Audrey pulls him down to sit between them; Duke gets him a glass. "She really wanted to take all my stuff, huh."

"Yeah, I don't think I was even part of her master plan, she just wanted to see if she could." Nathan accepts the drink Duke hands him, raises it in a salute to him before he takes a sip.

"Were you tempted?" They both freeze. Audrey tries to make her voice as neutral as possible. "I won't be mad."

Duke and Nathan exchange a complicated look, one Audrey can't quite read. The silent 'you first' 'no you first' battle is pretty obvious though. Nathan wins.

"She had...there was something about how she talked, she got inside your head," Duke admits.

"Made me doubt." Nathan agrees. "Don't know how, quite. Kind of like, while she was around you couldn't remember why you were so sure of the stuff you knew." Duke nods.

"I wouldn't call it tempted, though. I guess…'threatened' might be the right word. She talked like it was gonna happen--"

"Like a lot of things were gonna happen."

"Yeah, and she was so sure. It sounded like prophecy, like fate."

"But it wasn't. It didn't," Audrey says, because they both look like they need to hear it. _She_ needs to hear it, honestly.

"It didn't," Nathan confirms. "None of it, not even what she tried to do to Duke." They all clink glasses at that, some kind of charm against how close they came to that particular disaster.

"I might've," Duke blurts out, staring into his glass and not meeting their eyes. "If we weren't together. If I didn't have you already."

"You do. You have me." Audrey grabs his hand too hard, she knows that, knows she should loosen her fingers. She can't manage it until Nathan lays his hand over their joined ones, heavy and reassuring.

"Yeah. And honestly once you have the real Audrey Parker? Accept no substitutes." Duke grins, with a little twist of self-mockery to it that she has to lean over and kiss away.

"Agreed." Nathan steals his own kiss, whiskey-flavored. His mouth trembles a little; he's not used to feeling her again yet.

They settle back into their chairs. Audrey feels, ridiculously, liked she has won some sort of fight with Mara that she wasn't even aware of engaging in. For someone who happily shares the two loves of her life already, this satisfaction in staking her claim is new and kind of weird. Joy would think it was stupid; Caroline would be baffled. Juliana, though, would be doing a victory dance on Mara's intangible corpse.

"I don't know why the Barn picked the people it did," she says into the silence. She elaborates in response to the twin 'go on' looks she gets. "Sometimes they were right for what Tuwiowok--sorry, Haven, needed, but sometimes they failed." Poor Faith. "I can tell that someone else would have done better. Where's the logic in that?"

"Maybe the intention wasn't to help Haven," Nathan suggests.

"Yeah that's a little too altruistic for your sort-of mom." Duke is not a Charlotte fan. "The point was Mara, right? To...teach her. Behavioral therapy though mind control."

Audrey snorts out a laugh at that.

"Nice."

"Seriously, though! The Barn's programming was probably something like 'grab whoever can show Mara that mad scientist experiments have consequences.'"

"Actually, I think you've got a point," Audrey realizes. It's sad, to know that her one enduring personality trait, the desire to help people, is not a fundamental goodness in her soul but an intended object lesson, but it's not devastating. It is who she is and she's proud of it, however she came by it. "It makes more sense, that they weren't chosen for Haven, they were chosen for her."

"That makes them--you--even more amazing, you know," Duke says softly. She frowns at him, not understanding, but Nathan is nodding agreement.

"These women weren't made to be good at dealing with the Troubles. But they did it anyways, every single one."

Hm. Interesting point. "And men," she corrects absently.

"What?"

"Men and women. Some of them were men."

She hadn't thought to be worried about this until it was already out of her mouth, but the minute she sees their shocked faces she reconsiders. They both already like men, obviously, so she's not going to give them some kind of crisis of sexuality. Just possibly, however, there's a difference between being attracted to men, and finding out your girlfriend is 2/18ths a guy.

"Like, physically?" Duke asks slowly, and she realizes she doesn't actually know. She has no memory of binding her chest flat. She has memories of shaving her face, now that she thinks of it. How did that work?

"I...think so?" And, wait, now that she's thinking about this, was the original Meredith trans? Is _that_ why she fled Falmouth so abruptly? Those memories are from before the Barn downloaded her, so they're hazy, but Audrey thinks she might be right. "Yeah, I think they were. I was. Did the Barn do that?"

"We know it can change your hair color," Nathan offers. "Maybe it can change more."

"Is this really weird?" She really was not worried at all before, but she's definitely worried now. "This is weird, right? God, I'm sorry, are you freaked out?"

"It's fine." Nathan makes a face that says he doesn't know how to say the right thing to reassure her. It is, in itself, pretty reassuring.

"Yeah." Duke nods, eyes careful as they scan her face. "Are _you_ freaked out? We knew the Barn messed with your head, but we didn't know it could mess with you quite this much."

"No, I'm okay, I don't mind." She doesn't. They've always been a part of her, she just knows it now. How could they, or their bodies, be alien? She lived them. "But I didn't think about...you know. Us. If it might be weird."

"Parker." Nathan takes her face between his palms, which never fails to make her cheeks heat and her heart thump embarrassingly. It's something about the way he brings their faces close and meets her eyes so steadily. Also, he tends to do this when he wants to say really, really sappy shit that makes her cry… "You are perfect. Every part of you. Every you you've ever been."

"God, Nathan." Like _that_. She wrinkles her nose, very hard, to try to stop her eyes from burning. It's only marginally effective. Tristan and Ben are some of the most bruised parts of her. She--he-- _they_ came to Haven love-starved every time (which she now realizes was the job description) but they had it hard, breaking down that wall that told them not to reach out. They were lonely men, and that loneliness lingered. Warm hands on their face and a soft voice calling them 'perfect' is a little more than those guys can really handle.

"You're sure?" she whispers, mortified at how thin and watery it sounds.

"Parker if you woke up as a man tomorrow I wouldn't care at all as long as you were still you," Nathan says firmly. She feels Duke's hand rest on her shoulder and gently squeeze.

"What he said. I'd be kinda into it, honestly," he adds.

"What matters is that you're who you want to be."

"And not an evil psycho with a god complex."

"...that too."

Audrey giggles, watery and choked. This is how it goes: Nathan makes her cry, then Duke makes her laugh, and both of them make everything okay.

She pries one of Nathan's hands off her face and presses a kiss to the palm, then reels him in with it and kisses his mouth too. Her other hand tangles with Duke's on her shoulder; when she turns her head he's already leaning down.

She missed this. Not just how good it is when Duke chases after her lips with deep, hungry pressure, when Nathan rubs his face into the hollow behind her ear and presses soft bites to her jaw. She missed the rhythm of it: easy, comfortable, practiced. She missed the evidence that they know each other, how they're going to move and what to do to make their pulse kick up.

"Do you want to?" Nathan asks carefully when his hands find the edge of her shirt and they all pause. They haven't had sex yet, not since she and Mara recombined. Audrey is a sure 'yes', her heartbeat strong and warm in her neck and stomach, but she glances at Duke first. His mouth twists.

"Maybe you should go ahead without me this time."

"Why?" She tries to sound simply curious, not dismayed. "If that's where you're at it's okay, of course it's okay, but why?" Does he still see Mara when he looks at her?

"Still a ticking bomb, remember? Let's maybe not risk setting off anything." Duke's eyes crinkle in rueful amusement when they both look startled. "You know it would be just like Mara to make sex some kind of trigger."

It absolutely would. Audrey acknowledges that point with a sigh.

"Let's wait."

"Oh, come on, you don't have to wait for me to--"

"No, she's right, I don't want to without you," Nathan says firmly. He knocks his forehead into Duke's gently, one of their weird masculine gestures of affection. (Ben and Tristan offer Audrey no insight into the complexities of 'I won't kiss your cheek because that's not manly but grabbing your ass in front of your coworkers is normal boyfriend behavior'. Maybe it's a generational thing.)

"Yeah. So in the interests of getting laid, let's get started defusing you." Audrey grins when Duke and Nathan look at her in surprise. She has eighteen lifetimes of fighting the Troubles to draw on now. She has three medical professionals, four housewives, six community organizers, a blacksmith, a historian, an accountant, a scientist, and an FBI agent at her disposal. Mara was special, sure, but she was _one person_. Her curse frankly doesn't stand a chance.


	6. Chapter 6

A year and a half after they end the Troubles for good, a real CDC doctor comes to Haven. (They know he's real; his credentials are subjected to possibly the most rigorous background check ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public servant).

"There's nothing to be alarmed about," he explains to Nathan and Audrey (and Duke, Stan, Dwight, Laverne, and the six other people casually eavesdropping outside Nathan's office). He must read the tension in their faces. It's probably pretty obvious; they know the Troubles are gone, they know it, but...there's the fear. What if. "I simply need to get some family medical data on a patient, and apparently your records were destroyed in some kind of natural disaster?"

"Hurricane," Nathan supplies.

"Right. I saw the rebuilding on the drive in."

"Messed us up pretty bad. We're good now, though." Audrey squeezes his hand behind the desk for that one.

"Glad to hear it. I just need contact information for these people, and I'll be out of your hair by the end of the week."

"Sure thing."

Once Dr. Turner has left for his bed and breakfast, an entire station of Troubles-weathered-and-therefore-paranoid cops watching him go warily, they review the list of names.

"These folks are George Rickham's people," Dwight says, eyebrows drawing together.

"Aw, I like George. Nice to know he's out there in the big world." No one even bothers to point out any more that Duke isn't a cop and shouldn't be in these conversations. Whether the leeway is for saving the town or for dating two detectives, he hasn't asked and isn't sure he wants to know.

"And apparently a patient interesting enough that the CDC is involved," Audrey points out. "Was he Troubled?"

They look at Dwight. He shrugs.

"Not that I know of, but we didn't start keeping records until things got bad, you know that."

"Right. So...maybe the Barn missed him somehow?"

"Is that possible?"

"Don't know. We can try asking it." Duke makes a face. It's hardest on him to activate the Barn; turning on the aether core that lives inside of him leaves him exhausted for days afterwards.

"That's a last resort. First, let's hunt these people down and ask them," Audrey decides. She makes for the door. Nathan and Dwight look at each other and shrug; Duke is already half out of the room after her, holding her coat.

~~~

George was Troubled, and is no longer according to his sister.

"I had it too. It wasn't one of the bad ones, thank goodness." Becca Tolby (nee Rickham) is slight and fidgety. She wears a Star of David around her neck and fiddles with it as she talks. She smiled when she saw Audrey at her door, which even in these post-Troubles days is unusual. "We would. Uh. We would change color."

"Sorry, what?" Nathan asks. She smiles at him, brief but amused.

"It's silly, isn't it? With me it was my hands. Purple for tired, green for happy, black for angry....changing colors all day long. George it was his nose. So embarrassing."

Audrey has a private theory that Mara and William made a whole set of 'practice' Troubles before working up to the really horrible ones. Troubles like the Wickham one support her theory pretty conclusively.

"So could George have...changed color again?" Audrey asks, ignoring Duke's incredulous hisses of ' _his nose?'_ behind her.

"Oh, no, that's not it. I know why that doctor is here: George contracted some kind of new strain of malaria on a business trip. He's fine but they won't let him back in the country until they're done studying it."

Seriously? Could this possibly be an innocuous, complete coincidence? As she thanks Becca for her time and she, Duke and Nathan troop out to their car, Audrey allows herself to hope that this can be classified as a false alarm.

Two days later they catch Dr. Turner breaking into Charlotte's files on Troubled genetics. Their security system in the hospital is new, and state-of-the-art, which is why it sends Audrey and Nathan a text message the minute the silent alarm goes off. Dr. Turner looks up guiltily from his files when they arrive.

"You're trespassing, Doctor," Nathan says mildly.

"And those files are definitely not George's family records," Audrey adds.

Dr. Turner winces. He's definitely not a criminal mastermind, at least: he appears to have simply unscrewed the doorknob and opened the filing cabinet with a paperclip. She doubts he even noticed the silent alarm going off.

"I know, I'm sorry. But when I saw how defensive you were at the police station, it was clear you wouldn't show me if I asked. You know what you're sitting on, here."

"Which is?"

"The greatest genetic discovery since Mendel." Uh-oh.

"Tell us what you think you know," Nathan orders, and the doctor immediately opens up the black bag at his feet and starts pulling out pile and piles of paper.

"When we took blood samples from George Rickham to study a malaria variant, we noticed something impossible. He eventually admitted that he'd inherited a medical condition common in Haven, that you refer to as 'Troubled', correct? Some kind of autoimmune disorder that was recently cured?"

Autoimmune? Quick thinking, George. "Sure."

"Well, look at this. This is the karyotype of a Troubled person, taken last year by your previous physician. Here are the allosomes--what people sometimes call 'sex chromosomes', this last pair here. What do you notice about them?"

"Uh. If by 'pair' you mean 'there's three of them'?" Audrey doesn't want to doubt this guy's scientific knowledge or anything, but she's pretty sure that's a basic-level observation.

"Exactly. Your previous doctor's notes are meticulous: anyone with this 'Troubled' condition has an allosomal mutation. Essentially, an extra chromosome."

That makes a lot of sense. Audrey never really bought that all of this was some kind of hugely advanced science, but she _is_ willing to accept that the changes wrought by Troubling someone would show up genetically. They certainly showed up everywhere else.

"Okay. So now it's gone, right? Back to normal?"

"No. This is George's karyotype as of last week." He pulls out another sheet of paper. Audrey squints.

"It looks fine to me." The extra squiggly is gone. In her professional opinion, the patient is cured.

"Ah, but _this_ is the karyotype of a 46 XY human male." Another sheet. More tiny squiggles. Audrey hangs on to her patience with difficulty.

"I think you're gonna have to spell it out for me, doc."

"Of course, my apologies. If we call the regularly-occurring allosomes X and Y, let us say the 'Trouble' mutation is T, yes? A completely different configuration."

"Sure."

"Well, one year ago today this patient's allosomes could be described as 'XYT.' As of right now, I would need to describe them as 'TT.' All conventional allosomes have disappeared. This pair now consists of two previously nonexistent chromosomes in both length and banding pattern."

Audrey's heart sinks, and she barely holds in a groan. It was too good to be true, everything being totally normal again. What does this new bullshit mean? What are they going to have to do, what are they going to have to _lose_ , to fix it? How bad is it going to be? She does not at all have the medical background to know if he's telling her this in a Portentous News voice just because it's weird science, or because there's actually a problem.

"So, are we dying? What is this doing to us? And is it curable? It isn't, right? You can't just surgically fix someone's genes, that's not how it works." She's pretty sure on that one. She's taken at least three biology classes, and one of them was even after the discovery of the genome.

"That's the fascinating part!" _No it's not *fascinating*, you prick, it's our lives and I'm not sure we can handle another problem to solve, not now, not yet._ She bites her tongue on it. She is Making Nice, Nathan should be proud. "Nothing should be able to change genes on this level, and changes this extensive...there should be immediate and obvious physical consequences. But none of you have noticed anything different."

That's not fascinating, that's genuinely terrifying. Troubles had triggers, and before something activated them, people didn't notice anything different then either.

"Okay. And this is everything you know?"

"So far." He's got that Science Gleam in his eyes. Audrey kind of hates the scientific spirit of inquiry.

"Good, great. Thanks for your help. Now, if you'll just come with me…" she takes the doctor's elbow and tows him across the room and out into the hallway. Dwight is standing directly outside the door, looming. He understands his role in this little pageant so well: his arms are crossed, and she thinks he may actually be wearing a tighter shirt than usual, because it looks like it's in pain trying to stretch to cover his biceps. Built dudes aren't Audrey's type necessarily--though they were Juliana's--but she appreciates the picture of casual menace he is successfully painting. 

"Doctor Turner. You and I are gonna have a discussion about trespassing."

He drops one arm onto the doctor's shoulders. The weight of it almost knocks him to the ground. Dr. Turner shoots Audrey a terrified, plaintive look as he is marched away; she smiles sunnily and waves goodbye. She's glad Dwight gets a chance to reprise his old Cleaner role every once in a while. By the time he's done with the guy, she's willing to bet that Haven will have a new resident doctor who is going to study their genetics all he wants but never, ever breathe a word of what he finds.

Unfortunately, that's only solved one problem. And for the other issue, they're going to need the Barn.

~~~

Audrey doesn't understand the new Barn, and frankly she's fine with that. Duke, over the course of trying to explain it to her, used the sentence "It doesn't occupy space, it just exists," at which point Nathan said "Sure" like that made any kind of sense, and Audrey said, very firmly, "I've decided that I don't care."

So when they trek out to the ruins of the lighthouse, ringed in caution tape and "DANGER" signs, and Nathan squinches his eyes shut like he has a headache and the air does a little shimmy and then the lighthouse appears, tall and pristine, Audrey doesn't question. She just yanks open the door and goes inside.

Nathan and Duke stay downstairs as she climbs the winding staircase. Or, their bodies do. The old Barn was blank white on the inside, perhaps because it was reflecting some of that chill blankness that Charlotte had inside of her, but in this new version, the walls are a solid, matte gray shot through with seams of opalescent black. Nathan and Duke, the new Barn's controller and power source, respectively, are everywhere she looks as she climbs.

She gets to the top, looking out over all of Haven.

"Hey," she says, awkwardly. The light, in the center of the ceiling, blinks at her.

"Hello Audrey Parker," it says, in a bland, Siri-esque voice.

"We have a problem," she tells it. No response, which is to be expected. It mostly only answers direct questions, except when Duke decides to play weird mind games with it. "The 'cure' we asked you to do? Fixing the Troubles? It didn't work."

"Incorrect. All Troubled individuals have been 'cured'. The directive was carried out with a 100% success rate."

Audrey frowns, and pulls the papers they took off of Dr. Turner from her pocket. "Then what is this?"

"That is an artistic rendering of an individual's chromosomal range."

" _Thanks_." Was the Barn this much of a sarcastic asshole before it was a combo of her, Nathan, and Duke? She feels like it wasn't. "Why is it not right? Or, standard. Why is it still not normal."

"This genetic configuration was necessary to carry out directive number two."

Directive number two? She doesn't understand for a long, confused minute, but it eventually occurs to her what it must mean. They'd told the Barn to un-Trouble everyone and to make sure they couldn't ever be Troubled again. Fuck, is that the root of this whole problem?

"This is the immunity thing? This new gene pattern?"

"'New' is inaccurate."

"This doctor sure as hell thinks there's never been anything like it!"

"This doctor's expertise is limited to Earth humans." Audrey rolls her eyes at the snooty tone. Ooh, Earth humans, how mundane and ~limited~. Then what it actually said clicks.

"Wait. So this isn't new because…?"

"This genetic configuration is standard for your people."

 _Her people_. So they're all...immune. For real immune. Not just to being Troubled again, but to any kind of Troubles, to aether itself. Immune like William, and Mara, and their whole species.

Technically, Audrey's species too.

"So they're all like them--me--now? Anyone who was Troubled can manipulate aether, and can't be affected by it?"

"Correct. Other phenotypicalities linked to this genotype are also present."

"Uh. What?"

At this point the Barn lets out a spew of multi-syllable words so completely outside Audrey's vocabulary that she can't even identify where the verb in the sentence is, much less what the hell it's saying. She's got a scientist knocking around inside her memories, and a couple other scholarly types, but none of them have any idea what this stupid interdimensional supercomputer is babbling about.

"Nope, nope, hold on. I need this listed in I-majored-in-criminal-justice terms please," she interrupts. She's pretty sure she's not imagining the huffy tone the Barn immediately adopts.

"Acknowledged," it practically sighs. "Earth humans who formerly had the 'Troubled' designation are now 99.99984% genetically identical to your people, as opposed to the Earth human average of 99.99873% commonality." Okay, she can parse that. They're more like her species of not-human humans than they were before, but by some ridiculously tiny margin. That doesn't sound like a big deal.

"Fine. And has that done anything to us? On more than a genetic level."

"The most salient changes are likely in the realm sexual plasticity."

"WHAT," she yells.

"Parker are you okay in there?" comes floating up the stairs.

"FINE!" she yells back, which is a massive lie.

"That's a six on the 'not actually fine' scale, if you get to eight we're coming up!" Duke calls.

"That's fair!" She's not sure if this scale is an in-the-moment invention or something they're been using against her for a while now, but it's honestly probably a pretty good idea for all three of them. They are all habitual but ineffective liars when anything is wrong. And this, this is very, very wrong.

"Sexual...plasticity?"

"'Sex' is a gestalt that refers to a grouping of physical characteristics, often including--"

"No, I know _that_."

"Acknowledged." The Barn leaves a good two-second pause before it continues. She uses that time to further _freak the fuck out_. "In Earth humans, heterogametic configurations exist. In your people, only the homogametic allosomal configuration is present. Sexual differentiation is therefore determined by environmental factors, including conscious choice."

Audrey braces herself on the wall of the Barn to steady her suddenly weak limbs. Very slowly, she summarizes: "We can change sex. At will."

"Correct."

"You mean you didn't do that to me, when I was Tristan and Ben?"

"We provided and uploaded the imprint. You configured yourself to match it."

"What about my hair color? Lucy and Sarah weren't blonde?"

"Melanin production is not plastic in this species. Hair dye is, however, commercially available." Sarcastic little shit.

"Okay. Okay." Audrey has to think about this, she has to get a handle on this new information, but she can't make her mind settle. All she can think about are the hundreds and hundreds of people who were told they were cured.

Oh fuck, has anyone 'switched' already? If not, it's only a matter of time. They have to tell people, but how? What will they think?  

She's seriously contemplating sitting down on the floor and throwing a little tantrum, just to see if it makes her feel better, when Duke and Nathan appear at the top of the stairs.

"You got to eight," is all Duke says, and she sighs like she's annoyed but readily sinks her head down onto his shoulder when he wraps an arm around her.

"We screwed up," she mumbles into his linen shirt.

"Ridiculous. I, personally, have never made a mistake in my life," he says. She snorts.

"What's going on?" Nathan asks, and reluctantly, Audrey straightens back up and gestures at the screen.

"We cured the Troubles by turning everyone into mutants."

"Uh."

"What."

She manages, briefly, to explain the colossal magnitude of their most recent fuck-up. About halfway through Nathan turns around and starts banging his head, very gently, against the stone wall. Duke just listens, eyebrows getting higher and higher with every word.

"--and I don't even know if we can reverse it without bringing the Troubles back," she finishes, despairingly.

"Hold on." Duke looks a little shell-shocked, but he's always been good at absorbing new ridiculousness and rolling with it. He holds up a hand now, be-ringed fingers twiddling a little in what seems to be a thinking gesture. "Just...okay. This is fucking batshit, let me just lead with that. But. Say we can reverse it. Is that...what we actually should do?"

" _Yes_ ," Nathan calls from where he still has his face pressed into the wall. "I remember the period Trouble. Never again."

"No one says you have to grow yourself a uterus, Nathan, jesus," says Duke, then makes a face like he can't believe that just came out of his mouth.

"Why _wouldn't_ we reverse it?" Audrey asks, baffled. She's still stuck on whether they even can, and Duke's over there suggesting...what?

"Remember Kaylee?" he says. She does, all of a sudden, and oh. Oh this now makes a lot more sense. "Yeah. She can't be the only Haven...uh, what do you say to not be an ass? Gender...queer? Is that it?"

"Trans person," Audrey supplies absently. She sees the shape of what he's saying, now, and that makes this all a lot more complicated. "You're right. If we reverse this, we're screwing her over."

"Yeah."

" _Fuck_."

They all stand there in silence for a long moment. To her surprise, it's Nathan who breaks it.

"We have to tell people. If we're not gonna reverse it, people at least have the right to know."

"Agreed," Audrey says, before she thinks about the implications, and just like that, they seem to be...settled. They're keeping this. Oh hell, they're keeping it.

"People are going to flip their shit," Duke says.

"Too right. I can only imagine what The Rev would say if he were still around," Audrey groans.

"Un _godly_!" Nathan says, with an eerily accurate mimicry of The Rev's pastor patter, and Audrey snorts out a loud, shocked laugh.

"Never do that again."

"Noted. I can't promise no one who thinks like him is left, though," Nathan adds.

"I can promise that they definitely _are_ ," Duke agrees ruefully.

"Yeah. We'll just have to be ready for the 'ungodly' contingent, I guess," says Audrey. "We'll have to plan this carefully. Especially because...listen, as far as I know, no one has actually _done_ the, uh, 'plastic' thing yet. We can't exactly answer people's questions about how it works; we don't really know."

"Hm." Audrey has about two seconds to recognize the expression Duke's making as his particular brand of 'ready, fire, aim', and then a _truly_ weird look chases its way across his face, one part concentration two parts an unfamiliar kind of discomfort.

"Guh. I didn't think I'd be able to _feel_ it," he says.

They both stare at him for a long moment, and then Nathan takes two quick steps and grabs his elbow, abruptly but with a kind of deeply worried care.

"Are you serious? Just like that? Duke what are you _thinking_ , you don't know--"

"That's the whole point! I'm just trying it out, so we know." Duke's doing an unconvincing job of pretending this is no big deal, face pale and smile wavering. Audrey steps up into his space too, rests her flat palm on his side and feels him shivering, just a little bit, like a spooked animal.

"Duke. You don't have to do this," she starts, because they've spent so long getting to this place together where he no longer feels like he has to bend to her every whim, like it's his job to jump on all the grenades and fix all the problems and tear pieces out of himself just to prove that he's worth keeping, and if this is some kind of backsliding into that dynamic that she'd thought was well behind them--

"I want to," he bursts out, harsh and almost angry. She blinks, and he presses his lips together, hard, and repeats it, a little bit softer. "I want to."

"What?" says Nathan, blankly, but Duke must read some kind of judgement into it because he tries to jerk his arm away, face going furious. "No, no, I mean--" Nathan doesn't let him pull away, in fact pulls him closer, until they're doing their weird thing where they're so close their foreheads almost touch, which always looks like they're trying to develop some kind of telepathy through pure proximity. "I'm just surprised, Duke. It's _fine_. Uh. Not fine. Good? Fine like the thing with Parker is fine." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Absolutely," Audrey agrees firmly, and he lets her take his hand, though he's still shaking a little. "How...what does it feel like?"

"Now? Nothing. No difference. It felt super weird for, like, a second, and then nada," he says. "I don't...do I look any…?"

"No, not yet at least." It isn't like Kaylee's Trouble, where his face was suddenly different. Nothing's different, as far as she can tell, and she almost wonders if it didn't work.

"At this point, the gene activation process is complete. Downregulation and upregulation will commence in roughly six seconds; stem cell activity is underway and new organ tissue will be mature within 14 days," the Barn announces, and they all startle, having forgotten where they were.

"Oh. Two weeks?" Duke frowns for a second, then shrugs. "That's not so bad."

"Yeah. Gives us a couple weeks to figure out how to play this," Nathan agrees.

To her own faint surprise, a sudden surge of curiosity so powerful it almost feels like longing sweeps through Audrey. Not just to see this process happen to Duke, though that's a huge part of it; she finds herself calling up her memories of Tristan and Ben, digging into them to remember what the physical feeling of a different body was like. Knowing she can feel that again is...intriguing.

She doesn't want to steal Duke's thunder. This is important to him, that much is clear. But...once they've gotten some time to get used to it, maybe she'll try. Just to see what it's like. Just because she can, really. Could she...how _much_ of the process is at-will, really? If she wanted an in-between place, wanted to pick and choose characteristics until it felt _just right_ , could she even…?

"Wow. We are such weird people," she announces, without thinking about how it might sound. To her relief, Duke and Nathan both snort with laughter.

"You knew that from your first day in Haven," Nathan points out.

He's right, she really did. And she wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
